Monthly Archives: October 2019

The ride company announces a new division called Uber Money, which includes a digital wallet and upgraded debit and credit cards.The emphasis, at first, will be expanding Uber’s efforts to give its 4 million-plus drivers and couriers around the world access to a mobile bank account so they can get paid after each ride.Uber could one day offer a bank account to consumers on its platform, according to Uber Money head Peter Hazlehurst.

La Commission nationale informatique et libertés (Cnil) a indiqué mardi qu’elle s’opposait à la mise en place d’un système de reconnaissance faciale que souhaitent expérimenter deux lycées à Nice et à Marseille.« Ce dispositif concernant des élèves, pour la plupart mineurs, dans le seul but de fluidifier et de sécuriser les accès n’apparaît ni nécessaire, ni proportionné pour atteindre ces finalités », explique le gendarme français des données personnelles dans un communiqué, confirmant des informations de Mediapart.Le lycée niçois des Eucalyptus et le lycée Ampère à Marseille attendaient le feu vert de la Cnil pour mettre en place un portique virtuel de contrôle d’accès à leurs établissements par reconnaissance faciale.

Alphabet Inc. is in talks for a potential acquisition of smart watch maker Fitbit, a move that could bolster its hardware business while also increasing antitrust scrutiny, according to a person familiar with the deal.Reuters reported the talks earlier on Monday, sending Fitbit’s stock up as much as 41%. Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat declined to comment on whether the two companies are in discussions.Deliberations are ongoing and it may not result in a transaction, said the person, who asked not to be identified as the discussions are private.Google is under investigation for anti-competitive behavior by both the U.S. federal government and a collection of state attorneys general because of its online advertising and data collection practices, making any acquisition the company does likely to come under strict scrutiny.

Selon Bloomberg, Apple veut monter une équipe destinées à travailler à travailler sur des produits domestiques liés à HomeKit.Le but est d'inciter plus de fabricants à adopter sa norme et proposer des équipements (dits) intelligents.Apple a ainsi lancé pas moins de 15 offres d'emploi dans le domaine.La société semble vouloir faire son retard sur Google et Amazon qui détiennent l'essentiel des parts de marché que ce soit avec leurs produits domotiques qu'avec leurs enceintes connectée qui en deviennent le chef d'orchestre.Le HomePod aurait seulement 5% de parts de marché contre 70 % pour les produits d'Amazon et 20% pour ceux de Google.

Jope, who has been in the role since January, was clear on the key social issues Unilever is looking to tackle. He said: “Climate change is real, inequality is unacceptable and plastic is a problem.”He explained that although brands can make a huge difference, it is vital  stakeholders from outside business also push for a better world.“These challenges of inequality and climate change are not things we are going to be able to tackle alone. We need business, government, civil society and citizens to come together to represent the change that we need.”He concluded: “We are determined to prove once and for all that responsible business and sustainability is a path to better financial outcomes and that is our mission.”

Since Tesla unveiled its Solar Glass Roof in 2016, its home energy business has stumbled. CEO Elon Musk thinks a new version of the house-topper could turn that around.COURTESY OF TESLAElon Musk on Friday afternoon revealed details of the latest version of Tesla’s Solar Glass Roof, announcing that installations have begun and should ramp up in the coming weeks. This third iteration of the electricity-generating house-topper will be cheaper, easier, and faster to install than its predecessors, Musk said in a public Q&A session. That makes it a viable candidate for the kind of scale the Tesla CEO tends to target, reaching thousands of homes a week in a few months’ time. “It’ll grow like kelp on steroids,” he said. And with enough growth, it could revive Tesla’s stumbling attempt to be not just a carmaker, but an energy company.Rather than installing solar panels on an existing roof (a service Tesla also offers), this product is the roof. It’s made of glass tiles that can turn photons into electricity. From the ground, the tiles are meant to be indistinguishable from opaque slate, assuaging concerns about a trade-off between helping the environment and hurting one’s eyes. Musk showed off the first version of the product in 2016, and never disclosed the second version until Thursday. The latest version comes with a 25-year warranty and a promise that the glass can withstand 110-mph winds and chunks of hail nearly 2 inches in diameter.For years, Musk has said that the solar roof and Powerwall (basically a big battery that allows owners to store energy produced by solar power, instead of sending it to the grid) are important to the company’s quest to accelerate the adoption of clean energy. But in the three years since it started taking reservations for the solar roof, Tesla has struggled with the product, delaying its launch and winning relatively few installations. The second version, Musk said Friday, was so expensive to produce and install that Tesla was “basically trying not to lose money.” The edges, especially where the tiles met gutters, were “very artisanal” and often completed at the work site, making for a complicated and time-consuming installation. In the second quarter of this year, Tesla installed just 29 megawatts of solar power—far from its quarterly high of 200.Version 3.0, he said, uses bigger tiles and different materials (no more detail there), and cuts the number of parts and subassemblies by more than half. Work slowed while Tesla focused its resources on producing its Model 3 sedan, but now that production’s running smoothly—and profitably—it has swung its attention back to the roof.

Dans un spot de près de deux minutes, des hommes sont montrés tout sourire devant une scène de harcèlement et un patron touche l’épaule d’une collègue avant de prendre la parole à sa place. Certains de ces messieurs prennent alors conscience de leurs erreurs. Un beau mâle empêche un de ses amis de faire un commentaire inapproprié à une passante dans la rue et un papa sépare deux enfants qui se bagarrent dans la rue. Cette campagne a soulevé une véritable levée de boucliers aux Etats-Unis et dans le reste du monde.L’acteur James Woods, qui a tourné notamment dans « Il était une fois en Amérique », « Casino » et « Nixon », a appelé au boycott de la marque après la diffusion de ce spot qui est, pour lui, une véritable « propagande féminine ». Le psychologue Gad Saad s’est, de son côté, demandé ce que « les « hommes toxiques » qui ont débarqué sur les côtes normandes pour libérer le monde du Diable en personne penseraient de la moralisante campagne de Gillette ». Certains parallèles laissent songeur… D’autres personnalités ont, au contraire, cherché à défendre la communication de la marque américaine. « Cette publicité n'est pas anti-hommes. Elle est pro-humanité », a expliqué sur les réseaux sociaux Bernice King, fille de Martin Luther King.

Invitée d'une émission spéciale censée permettre au peuple russe d'échanger avec Vladimir Poutine, Elena Bounina, directrice générale de Yandex, affiche un sourire nerveux. Le président russe s'est pourtant montré particulièrement enthousiaste à l'évocation de ce moteur de recherche local : "Notre gouvernement est fier du succès d'une société qui parvient à rivaliser avec des géants comme Google... avec quelques coups de main de notre part, il faut l'avouer." Mais cette dernière phrase, lâchée comme une boutade, est un rappel à l'ordre implicite. Et la jeune quadra a parfaitement compris le message : "N'oubliez pas que sans l'appui du Kremlin, rien n'est possible." Yandex ? Un moteur de recherche russe qui parvient, chose rare, à résister à l'écrasante domination de Google à l'intérieur de ses frontières. Les deux groupes se partagent ainsi à parts égales les requêtes des internautes russes. Lancée en 1997, soit un an avant Google, l'entreprise a immédiatement développé ses algorithmes en utilisant l'abécédaire cyrillique, ce qui lui permettrait encore aujourd'hui d'être plus pertinent que son concurrent californien. Et le champion moscovite se développe tous azimuts : voiture autonome, livraison à domicile, VTC, e-commerce, service de vidéos en ligne... Chose rare pour une entreprise russe, la société est même cotée au Nasdaq, la Bourse new-yorkaise spécialisée dans les valeurs tech. "Les investisseurs institutionnels américains détiennent la majorité du capital", tient à souligner Gabriel Naouri (le fils du PDG du groupe Casino), qui dirige depuis le début de l'année la branche e-commerce de Yandex.  

Serious stuff is happening in Shanghai, the site of Tesla’s second manufacturing facility, company executives said on a phone call with investors. The carmaker’s “low-cost” Model 3 vehicles are already moving through assembly lines on a trial basis, and Musk heralded the “massive” stamping machines and in-operation paint shop. He also confirmed media reports that a second building is under construction in the Shanghai complex to handle battery and module production. Tesla hopes to produce 1,000 Model 3s a week from the factory by the end of the year. It will also produce Model Ys, its affordable crossover model, at the plant.In its earning report, Tesla said it is working to finalize its local manufacturing license and to meet “other governmental requirements” before ramping up production in Shanghai.That’s good news for Tesla, because China is vital to the carmaker’s future. Though the country’s economy has been buffeted by a trade war with the US, it still has among the most electric-vehicle-friendly regulations on the globe. Chinese car buyers shelled out for 1 million electric vehicles in 2018, and should buy 2 million next year, according to a report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Nearly 70 percent of China’s cars could be electric by 2040.But China has, until this year, required foreign carmakers to link up with domestic ones to manufacture in the country, and avoid a 25 percent import duty. Tesla will be the first foreign company to take advantage of China’s new rule, which allows foreigners to produce vehicles in the country without a Chinese partner. The company believes China will be its strongest Model 3 market. Last month, one analyst said he suspected that Tesla sales in China are spiking up.

An international business consortium led by Dutch clean energy conglomerate Koolen Industries has made a multi-million-euro investment in Hardt Hyperloop, the company that created Europe’s first full-scale operational hyperloop test-facility for the high-speed zero emissions transportation system.This investment round was backed by the renowned German fund Freigeist Capital, multiple Dutch and Belgium investors, and one of the first engineers of Uber. Several existing investors also participated. The company has raised more than ten million euros to date.“Koolen Industries brings not only money to the table, but also a phenomenal strategic knowledge about how to build a leading company in a new industry. This partnership will pave the way for several big projects that will ensure a successful commercial implementation of our hyperloop solution,” says Tim Houter, CEO, Hardt Hyperloop. “It’s great to have such a broad and international group of investors who will help with the local developments as well, and having the continuous support of our first investors”Hardt Hyperloop fits equally well into Koolen Industries’ family of clean energy companies, says Kees Koolen, CEO Koolen Industries.“Hardt Hyperloop, with its unique lane switching technology, will change the way we travel, just like Uber did for personal mobility in cities. High-speed zero emission hyperloops will enable everyone to participate in the clean energy transition, without having to quit travelling. And as the hyperloop developed by Hardt is much more than an idea, it is already in a position to offer an affordable and sustainable alternative to the polluting aviation industry,” says Koolen, who is a former CEO of Booking.com and was an early Uber investor.